DiGRA 2014 is being hosted by the University of Utah’s EAE program and will be held in the Wasatch Mountains at Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort from August 3rd-6th. The location is scenic, secluded, economical, and within easy access of Salt Lake City’s International Airport. We believe it offers a unique setting in which to explore games, and the blanks in games research.

To such end the theme of DiGRA 2014 is a phrasal template: <Verb that ends in ‘ing’> the <noun> of Game <plural noun>

For DiGRA’s 2014 Conference we playfully emphasize work that explores non-traditional questions, peers between the cracks of areas that are starting to become well-worn, and revisits old themes from new perspectives. In other words, what has been overlooked or otherwise not given the care and respect it deserves? A Mad Lib is a word game in which one player asks another for nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech with little or no context. They then proceed to fill in the blanks of a phrasal template to often humorous and sometimes profound results. As game scholars we have worked hard to figure out what were the most important blanks. However, at this, the seventh DiGRA conference, we invite you to point out the blanks that have yet to be filled. Your answers to our Mad Lib theme could highlight the profound, sublime, or humorous. We encourage you to trying working the theme into the title of your work.

Virtual reality is an immitation of the real world in a digital context. Augmented reality supplements a real-world experience with layers of digital interaction. In a combined experience, British researcher William Steptoe created a dual, virtual and augmented reality system to create what seems like a new reality altogether.

Called the AR-Rift, Steptoe’s creation uses the Oculus Rift with additional components to create a series of tiered reality experiences. With webcams, 3D-printed components, and a motion tracking suit, Steptoe is able to layer an augmented visual world on the real and an additional virtual perspective on the augmented version. Interacting within the virtual landscape, Steptoe can then add augmented reality components to the virtual world. In effect, the AR-Rift creates a massive web of augmented-virtual and virtually-augmented visual experiences. Read more on The AR-Rift combines AR and VR for tiered reality experiences…

Questions of space and place affect the very way in which we experience and recreate the world. Wars are fought over both real and imagined spaces; boundaries are erected against the “Other” constructing a lived landscape of division and disenfranchisement; while ideology constructs a national identity based upon the dialectics of inclusion and exclusion. The construction of space and place is also a fundamental aspect of the creative arts either through the art of reconstruction of a known space or in establishing a relationship between the audience and the performance. Politics, power and knowledge are also fundamental components of space as is the relationship between visibility and invisibility. This new inter- and multi-disciplinary conference project seeks to explore these and other topics and open up a dialogue about the politics and practices of space and place. We seek submissions from a range of disciplines including archaeology, architecture, urban geography, the visual and creative arts, philosophy and politics and also actively encourage practitioners and non-academics with an interest in the topic to participate.

We welcome traditional papers, preformed panels of papers, workshop proposals and other forms of performance – recognising that different disciplines express themselves in different mediums. Submissions are sought on any aspect of space and place, including the following: Read more on Call: Space and Place – 5th Global Conference…

Would you wear a pair of Google glasses while having sex? Would being able to see what your partner is seeing make you more or less likely to? Sex with Glass, a new app in development for Google Glass, hopes the answer is yes.

The project started off with the question “how can we make sex more awesome with Google Glass”, says Sherif Maktabi, the founder of the project.

Call for Participation
IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality10-12 September 2014, Munich, Germanyhttp://ismar.vgtc.org/

Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) melt the barriers between virtual media the physical world and our imagination by enriching our ability to interact with all three. New applications in diverse areas such as Engineering, Entertainment, Arts, Education, Media, and Humanities push the boundaries of science and technology. As the premier conference in the field, ISMAR is responding to this explosive expansion of program scope. Two key areas of submissions are S&T (Science & Technology), covering emerging capabilities of MR/AR, and the MASH’D (Media, Arts, Social Sciences, Humanities & Design), covering the human side of technology application including real world explorations by Media professionals, Artists, Social Scientists, Humanity scholars and Designers.

NEW EXPANDED SCOPE

The theme of this year’s conference is to “Augment Everything Everywhere for Everyone”. ISMAR 2014 will cover the FULL range of technologies encompassed by the Mixed Reality spectrum, from interfaces in the real world to fully immersive experiences. This range goes far beyond the traditional definition of Augmented Reality, which focused on precise 3D tracking, visual display and real-time performance.

Dean Hall developed the zombie-packed, psychologically trying PC game to re-create tension faced by soldiers. The emotional responses it triggers have helped the game sell more than a million downloads in its first month.

In early January, a Reddit user posted an emotional story about waking up on a beach and befriending a fellow lost soldier. But the soldier’s health began to deteriorate. And the author was eventually forced to kill his friend with the other man’s own gun to end his suffering. “His voice gone, I sat there staring at my monitor and began to cry,” the Redditor wrote. “I’ll never see that friend again and I miss him very much.”

“God damn,” wrote a commenter. “Alright I’m getting this game.”

The writer was playing DayZ, a zombie apocalypse multiplayer PC game that sold its 1-millionth download last week, less than a month after its Dec. 16 release. That release is only the game’s early-access alpha version, which developer Dean Hall will be enhancing and improving for most of the next year before launching it in beta. But even at this stage, the reason for DayZ‘s enormous success is becoming clear–the game play leads to a degree of psychological tension and emotional response that players report never before experiencing in a computer game. Read more on “DayZ” game makes you feel every murder you commit…

CALL FOR PAPERS
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH CONFERENCE
ROBO-PHILOSOPHY 2014-SOCIABLE ROBOTS AND THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL RELATIONSwww.robo-philosophy.org
August 20-23, 2014
Aarhus University, Denmark

CONFERENCE THEME

Sociable robots likely will play an increasing role in future everyday life–assisting and replacing humans in many contexts, from caretaking to teaching to entertainment. How will this affect human social interaction, as notion and as practice? Are there limits to the functional simulation of social interaction? How much of a ‘theory of mind’ do robots need to be ‘sociable’? If we engage with robots as if they were persons, how will this affect how we understand ourselves? — The conference will address these and other philosophical questions that arise with design and use of sociable robots. Conference contributions will present philosophical research that closely interacts with empirical studies of concrete applications of sociable robots in robotics, psychology, anthropology, or cognitive science, as well as relevant artificial intelligence research. The conference, which will feature 40-60 speakers, is organized in order to clarify the extent to which philosophical research can be used for the design and use of sociable robots. Read more on Call: Robo-Philosophy 2014 – Sociable Robots and the Future of Social Relations…

[From the Subway Stories web site, which features much more information including images and videos]

Subway Stories By Alon Chitayat & Jeff Ong

“Subway Stories” is an interactive subway simulator exploring the inner-lives of commuters in New York City.

Living in New York City, many of us spend hours a day below ground. Each day millions of people commute via the subway — an apparently “interactive” experience if you stop to consider the potential collisions that could happen. But if you’ve spent significant time on subways, you begin to realize it’s often an isolating experience — one of the last frontiers where cell phone service and networks are still absent, leaving its inhabitants to their own conversations, music, and inner-thoughts. Like a horizontal elevator, passengers anxiously wait for their stop, acutely aware of their temporary neighbors.

What of the judgments we make about those around us in places such as a subway car? The passing encounters, the conversations, the thoughts of our temporary neighbors? Through an interactive storytelling environment, “Subway Stories” invites users to reconsider the seemingly ordinary and daily experience of commuting.

Using two basic handles, a user controls the position of the adjacent car from which the camera peers into the subway on screen. Passengers have accompanying thoughts and sounds that play when the camera is focused on them.

We would like to cordially invite you to consider contributing a paper to TAIE 2014 – held as a part of the Federated Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (FedCSIS 2014).

FedCSIS is a yearly international multi-conference organized by the Polish Information Processing Society (PTI) in technical cooperation with the IEEE Region 8, IEEE Poland Section Computer Society Chapter, IEEE Poland (Gdansk) Section Computer Society Chapter, ACM Special Interest Group on Applied Computing, International Federation for Information Processing, European Alliance for Innovation, IEEE-CIS Poland Section Chapter, Asociación de Técnicos de Informática, Committee of Computer Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Polish Society for Business Informatics, Polish Chamber of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Polish Chamber of Commerce for High Technology and Eastern Cluster ICT Poland.

Intelligent Environments (IEs) are spaces in which networked computing technologies are seamlessly embedded to enhance people’s ordinary daily activities via creating interactive environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. Various places people inhabit encompassing settings such as homes, classrooms, factories, transport, clothing, etc., provide various types of IEs. Moreover, IEs describe physical environments in which information and communication technologies and sensor systems disappear as they become embedded into physical objects, infrastructures, and the surroundings in which we live, travel, and work. Therefore, the main goal of developing IE applications is to allow computers to take part in activities never previously involved and allow people to interact with computers via gesture, voice, movement, and context. This workshop provides a multidisciplinary interactive forum for researchers and practitioners from different disciplines; such as science, engineering, architecture, sociology, government, education or business, in order to present theoretical and practical results of their work. Read more on Call: Workshop on Trends and Applications in Intelligent Environments (TAIE’14)…

[From Race Yourself, where the press release includes a 1:40 minute video and several photos (I couldn’t find a screenshot with the 400 tonne cargo train –ML)]

Get Fit This Year by Fleeing From Augmented Reality Zombies: Race Yourself Transforms Exercise Into a Game on Google Glass

Race Yourself is a New Fitness Startup for Google Glass, Aiming to Turn Exercise Into a Game. By Racing Against a Virtual Projection of Yourself, Attaining Personal Bests, and Burning Calories, You Can Unlock New Game Modes Such as Running Away from Giant Rolling Boulders. Race Yourself has Already Raised £200,000 from Investors Lead by DN Capital, and is Now Launching a Crowd-Funding Campaign Via Their Website, www.raceyourself.com, on the 8th January.

January 2014

After the season of indulgence, the New Year provides the chance to consider a resolution to better oneself. Getting fit is one of the most common resolutions, but after the initial eagerness has subsided, finding the motivation to persevere can be difficult[1][2][3][4].

Many new technologies are emerging that help you attain long-term fitness goals – from Nike+, which allows you to set exercise goals and track progress, to GymPact, a platform that uses financial incentives to motivate action. The latest player in the tech-fit market is Race Yourself for Google Glass, aiming to reinvent the way we exercise by transforming a workout into an augmented reality game.

Race Yourself allows you to chase a 3D projection of yourself, a friend, or even an avatar Usain Bolt’s speed. The basic concept behind this new exercise platform is that having a target to aim for leads to higher motivation; so you chase a virtual projection set by your personal goals.

“Imagine racing against your own personal best, chasing a friend you want to beat, or even escaping a 400 tonne cargo train travelling at your target marathon pace. By blending reality with virtual reality, we can make workouts a lot more interesting and motivating” – Alex Foster (co-founder, Race Yourself) Read more on Race Yourself for Google Glass transforms exercise…